Publisher's description: Lost in the jungle! Beck Granger is on a trip to Colombia in his school holidays. His anthropologist uncle has taken him along on a visit to Don Rafael de Castillo, a descendant of a great explorer who is claimed to have discovered a lost City of Gold. But the secret of the city died with the explorer - until now..
A fast-paced, exciting new adventure full of real survival details and gruesome tips.
Dads Space review:
When I was a young lad, my dad used to read to me. But he wouldn't usually read me kids books, just a paragraph or two of whatever he happened to have in his hand. If I was unlucky, it'd be highlights from the Argos catalogue. If I was lucky, he'd be half way through a Wilbur Smith novel, and he'd read me out a particularly gruesome passage, delighting in making it sound as horrible as possible. As Bear's interview above shows, clearly my Dad wasn't the only one.
Gold Of The Gods then, is great gruesome stuff to read to your kids. There's no sex or swearing, but there's a lot of really nasty survival techniques. For instance: stuck on a raft with no water? Why not suck the fluid out of fish eyes?
As anyone who's seen one of his TV shows will know, Bear Grylls lives his entire life like an extended episode of "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here", happily scoffing bugs, snakes and dung on his travels. The man can survive anywhere, and he's stuffed this first book with Jungle exploration tips. They're scattered throughout a gripping adventure tale involving kidnappings and Aztec gold, and although the ending was a bit sudden, we thought it was great. Chapters are just the right length to read before bedtime, and there's always something gruesome around the next corner. Apparently there are more books in the series on the horizon - we can 'Bear'-ly wait!